Rugby in spotlight over repaint bills
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• An angry haulier wants to take action against Rugby Cement so that around 100 owner-drivers each left at least £3,000 out of pocket under the terms of a Rugby contract can attempt to reclaim the money. The owner-drivers hail their haulage contracts with Rugby Cement terminated last Christmas following Rugby's decision to appoint TNT as its lead logistics provider". The contracts between Rugby Cement and the owner-drivers stated that upon termination the trailers leased to them by Rugby would be re-sprayed before reissue with the cost charged to the owner-driver.
"This is fine if you are at the end of an eight-year contract but our trailer had only been leased for a few months," says the haulier, who prefers not to be named. "I had signed an eight-year lease deal in the belief that the Rugby contract would continue. The trailer did not need respraying." Each owner-driver was charged 13,295 for the work. The haulier now wants owner-drivers affected to come forward to join him in "taking on" Rugby; another owner-driver says the "tactics of Rugby Cement have upset us".
George Lawson, logistics general manager at Rugby Cement, says: "The re-spraying of trailers following the end of a contract was expressed clearly" to the ownerdrivers. Lawson adds he has only heard of "one complaint on this issue and that is being dealt with".
• Hauliers who wish to contact the haulier concerned can dose care of CM.